Nobles' Club CII: Gilgamesh of Sumeria

dalamb

dalamb

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Joined
May 9, 2006
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Kingston, Ontario
Hello all, Herodotus Rex here!

Longtime Civ player/visitor of the forum but this is my first map – hope everything works and you have fun!

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Gilgamesh of Sumeria, whom we last played in NC XXXVI. The Sumerians start with Agriculture and The Wheel.
  • Traits: Gilgamesh is Creative and Protective CRE gives a crucial +2 to give you faster border pops without building infrastructure; it also makes some cultural buildings cheaper (libraries, theatres, and colosseums). PRO gives faster walls and castles, and all archery (and gunpowder) units start with Drill I and City Garrison one.
  • The UB: The Ziggurat , a Courthouse) available for 90 :hammers: with Priesthood (instead of 120 :hammers: with Code of Laws).

  • The UU: The Vulture , an Axeman with 6 :strength: and +25% vs Melee Units instead of 5 :strength:and +50% vs Melee Units.
And the start:

Spoiler map details :
Pangea, Rocky.
Spoiler edits :
Added a plains Corn in BFC because other AIs had 2-3 food tiles. Shaved a little land from Victoria because I was worried she would gain too much land on higher difficulties. Tried to balance the strategic resources a little. Added a small island for Toku because I AM GOD!
Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:
There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:
  • 4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
  • 1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
  • 500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
  • 1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didn't, met other
  • continent if applicable, etc)
  • 1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
  • End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)
This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number or stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps in the early days of the series, and all of you for playing.
Click to expand...
The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 102 Gilgamesh Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.
Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :
In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Noble. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:
Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

  1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
  2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
  3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
  4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
  5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
  6. Exit the worldbuilder.
  7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.
Spoiler huts and events :
Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.
 

Attachments

  • NC 102 Gilgamesh.zip
    127.5 KB · Views: 273
Thanks to Herodotus Rex for making the map. Sorry for the delay in posting.

Reserved.
Spoiler statistics on victories :
Benginal: Immortal Domination 1400 AD
dalamb: Monarch Epic huts Domination 1784 AD.
DanielTorrence: ? Domination 1565 AD
deep64blue: Domination Victory - Noble - Normal - Huts - 37,884 in 1842AD
dmd175: Noble Domination 1917 AD
GGS: Monarch/Normal. Huts&Events. 1824 AD. Domination Victory
JustBen: Immortal Space 1946
KaytieKat: Noble/Marathon Conquest 370 BC
Lemon Merchant: Noble conquest 1580 AD
on land: Monarch Domination 1830 AD
Pengu: Emperor Domination 1740 AD
Shaandore: Immortal Domination 1795 AD
The Oz Man: Monarch AP 1640 AD
tijup: Noble, huts, Marathon, 860 BC, Conquest
Timhotep: Monarch Conquest 1500 AD
Tommah: 1665 AD Domination Monarch/Normal
Toxicc: Monarch Domination 1685 AD
Undecided: Immortal; Normal; 1675 AD Conquest
waggertribe: Noble Domination 540 AD
 
dalamb said:
@vranasm: tell us more. What do you find interesting about it?
Click to expand...

well you sit on GH. to move on Ph you lose nonwet corn and the riverside plains corn is for sure tile you normally won't see.

moving 1S (to get better hill) loses turn.

not sure what would be best here... maybe waste that riverside GH with sip.
 
I almost always SIP so that's what I plan to do here; if I made the map I might have changed our starting tile to a PH but I suppose I tend to make easy maps.

@vranasm: Saw your comments in RLC#1 about non-commerce starts; do you think immediate Pottery for granary and cottages makes sense? or do we need mining ASAP for more production?
 
dalamb said:
I almost always SIP so that's what I plan to do here; if I made the map I might have changed our starting tile to a PH but I suppose I tend to make easy maps.

@vranasm: Saw your comments in RLC#1 about non-commerce starts; do you think immediate Pottery for granary and cottages makes sense? or do we need mining ASAP for more production?
Click to expand...

with Gilga writing and oracle strategy makes more sense (PH gives ziggs) not sure what I would bulb though.

this start especially tells me something about early library and farming the grassland
 
Mylene said:
You should prolly go with tiles that exist, wheat > corn for plains ~~
Click to expand...

This time you lost me. For resource on plain tiles, why the wheat is superior to corn? In fact, both are equivalent in term of food value and the very fact wheat has normally one less food is caused by the underlying soil, which is plain. Of course, getting a wheat tile instead of a second corn not only furnish another health resource, but another trade bait for, I dunno, a happy resource.

True normal mapscripts don't spawn plain corn, but oasis mapscript spawns few of these, while desert corns :crazyeye: are common and grass corn tremendously rare (but awesome).
 
Just chopped my first settler, so it's time to see where to plant him.
Spoiler :
I went pottery first, meaning I went for a granary after my first worker instead of fogbusting warriors; in the long term it looks like I'll get vultures out in time to kill off the barb warriors that spawned. Next was mining > BW > AH > 1 turn from Myst; planning for Masonry next for the stone, and then Meditation > Priesthood for zigs.

Here's my current thoughts on city placement.

I think I need to go for light blue (to the SW) ASAP to try for the horses; I'm worried about Stalin's cultural pressure there, though I suppose if he expands over my horses he becomes a target. If he's building wonders he won't have many cities for a while so should be a fairly easy conquest. Another alternative is white (South) for the ivory, but I think that should be 2nd. Northern cities are fairly safe to defer, and let me postpone fishing for a while.

When I saw the stone I thought of trying an odd strategy madscientist once used of going for a purely spy-driven research path -- build GW, go for spy specialists everywhere, build Scotland Yard everywhere, with zigs giving early spy points. However I suspect at monarch, and with no obvious techers around it's not so great a strategy here (not that it was all that great when mad did it). There's one more AI to find (Toku came from the east), and I suspect s/he is south of Stalin since we start in the north and on Pangaea I'd expect anyone else to my east would have found me by now. More conventional would be go for the 'mids (or conquer them from Stalin if he goes for them).

Here's the known world.

I imagine vultures are better city attackers than axemen given the higher base strength. Against melee they appear to be 6*1.25=7.5 versus 5*1.5 = 7.5, a wash until promotions kick in. Thus whatever my long-term plan I probably better take out Rome before he gets too strong (that is, gets praets).
 
vranasm said:
well you sit on GH. to move on Ph you lose nonwet corn and the riverside plains corn is for sure tile you normally won't see.

moving 1S (to get better hill) loses turn.

not sure what would be best here... maybe waste that riverside GH with sip.
Click to expand...

I think I've made up my mind to move to the plains hill and get cottages/farms up on riverside grassland.

Pros
1. Worker can start farming the corn the turn he's finished.
2. 2 Hammer capital. (Possibly 3. I wouldn't be surprised if there's iron or copper under that hill).
3. A much greener 4 grassland hills in the capital instead of 2 grassland 2 plains. I'll probably not work the desert hill for a while.
4. Leaves room for a coastal (?) city to be settled on the plains hill 2 north of the western corn.

Cons
1. We lose the second corn.
2. We have to wait to pop the hut. My initial thought is that this is a bad thing, but I don't know much about huts.
 
Emperor dom 1740

Spoiler :

An easy game that should have been over earlier but game wanted differently.
I SIP and worker stole from Stalin. Then I chocked him so he fell behind.
Got bw, settled 2nd city between silver and deer. Oracled col and then settled 3rd city by the ivory. Stalin was way behind and I just took all but one city and got tech for peace. Not that he was going to live long...
And well, Egypt was just south so I continued on taking all but 1 island city and took more tech for peace. on my way back I wiped out Russia once and for all. At this time I was suffering financially and was spaming out ziggurats. Meanwhile unfortunately my neighbours Japan and Rome ju loved Stalin so I had -3 and -2 in realation penalty with them. I knew early on that they could be trouble so I made sure we we all in the conf religion. But did that help? No, cause you get -3 for close borders with those *****So while I was trying to get my economy and big empire in order Japan declars just like that. My score was 2000 and Japan had 900. Sigh, so he snipes a city which I take back right away. He has no chance to do anything but he refuses to talk. So now I have to biuld army which hampers me alot. Finally after wave after wave fail do anything he agress to peace. Then just 10 turns later Rome, which are cautious and backward demands Paper from me. I now have 2600 pts and he has, 1200. A damn nuisance. Still he declares which is just idiotic and frustrating. So he manages to do jack all but delay me a bit more. Finally after losing most of his army he settles for peace. Even though Cyrus and Vic and almost as advanced as med I makle sure I get lib. I take rifling and build cavs. Declare on ROme and he caps after 3 turns just before he gets grenadiers. *****.
The cyrus falls just gefore he gets rifling. Next is Vic just before she gets grenadiers.
Japan is the last power but he has as usual nothing, not even cuirs.
As I never bothered with Egypts last city I got a dom win.
Was over already at 0 AD when I had like 1000 pts and 2nd had 700.
But still became a long grind.
 
Monarch/Standard everything/No huts & events/1640 AP win:

Spoiler :
Well, that was pretty intense.

BFC copper means it's time once again for an early rush, so I sent my vultures to lay the smack down on Stalin. Took two of his cities and burnt the third on T67 to get him out of the game. My favorite part was the fact that, when he finally built a city to grab copper... the copper was in the second ring and his city never popped its borders. :lol:

I could've probably rolled over Hattie as well with my vultures, but BFC stone in a good production capital is a rare super-easy chance for the Pyramids, so I took it. Diplomacy sucked because the factions were awful; Vickie and Caesar went Buddhist, Cyrus and Toku went Jewish, and Hattie was the lone Hindu until late in the game when Toku (and I, as you'll see) converted. So I built the Paya for Free Religion in the hopes of my two neighbors seeing others as juicier targets while I teched to Cuirs.

Well, fat lot of good that did, because Caesar declared war as I was teching Nationalism, and Toku followed up not long after that. Thanks to the Great Wall, I got a ton of generals defending my cities and managed to wipe out their stacks (Caesar threw a ton of Praets at a well-staffed border town on a hill stuffed with protective Longbows... yeah, have fun with that, Jules). When I got to Lib, Hattie built the AP, so I just went with a few quick, decisive wars with the neighbors, spread Hinduism to Vickie by the sword, and got the AP win after capping everyone but Toku, whom I was in the process of building up to conquer.


Thanks, H-Rex! Fun map.
 
Monarch/Normal. Huts&Events. Opening thoughts.

The case for moving the settler strikes me as less than compelling. Unless a resource requiring a pasture immediately pops-up this Team Summeria will open with mining, BW.
 
Well, it's been a while for me since I've played a complete game, so I thought that I would give this a go.

Using BAT 4.0, Epic speed, Noble.

Spoiler :

I settled in place and sent my warrior out exploring while I built another one, followed by a worker. I went South at first and found Russia. Stalin had sent his warrior off exploring, so I just marched right in and took his capital. End of Russia.

I found Egypt farther South but decided not to take Hatty out right away. To the West, I found Rome. I thought that by this time JC would have archers, so I started to build vultures and sent them over one at a time until I had a good invasion force. It took a while, but I finally got Rome. I had built a second city (Eridu) to the SW of Urek. I turtled for a while and built the GW, 'mids, and the Oracle (I hardly ever get it, but I took MC for forges and workshops), and I'm currently building up my army.


And now I need some advice, if some of you would be so kind...
Spoiler :

It's currently 1400 BC, and I've found England to the West of Rome, I know where Hatty is, and I have scouts looking for other civs, like Japan. Hatty is weak right now, but has hill archers in Thebes, which may prove to be tough going. My thought is to take out England before Vicky becomes a power house, and/or gets Redcoats. She only has two cities right now and I'm about to have Horse Archers in a few turns.

What should I do? Thoughts? (Please)
 
Lemon, regarding the opponent you're concerned about:

Spoiler :
Vickie is a long, long way away. You can stop her before Redcoats easily. The fact that you've got three Imperialistic leaders all in the same corridor means they're sort of going to cancel each other out. When I warred with her, I had a significant tech lead on this map and she didn't even have Gunpowder, never mind Redcoats..
 
Lemon - Post your saves. Also, BAT 4.0?!!! Why didn't you tell me? ;) When's the release?

Sounds like you are off to a good start and can do anything you wish. You might want to grab construction first to get a nice stack of cats and then wipe the map, eventually easing in some Phants.
 
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